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Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2006 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 16 pages •Vol.29, No. 7 DTZ • Saturday, February 18, 2006 • FREE WRECKING CREW Judge OKs Ratner’s demolitions By Ariella Cohen a coalition of community groups that ar- opment Corporation gave emergency per- The Brooklyn Papers gued that Ratner has no legal right to tear mits to Ratner to demolish the buildings, Bruce Ratner’s wrecking ball could down the buildings because his arena, citing an engineering study that they were residential and commercial project has about to collapse. Edmead’s ruling upheld Nets start swinging as early as next week, not been formally approved by the state. those permits. thanks to a state Supreme Court rul- “Being concerned about the impact of But in a victory for the community ing Tuesday that cleared the way for large projects is legitimate, but is not a le- groups, Edmead ordered the lead state the developer to demolish five build- gitimate reason to stop these demoli- agency on the project to dismiss a promi- seek to ings that are part of his Atlantic Yards tions,” Edmead said in a straight-from- nent environmental lawyer it hired last mega-development. the-bench ruling. year because he had previously worked Justice Carol R. Edmead ruled against In December, the Empire State Devel- on the project for Ratner. extend The state must now replace the lawyer, David Paget, within 45 days, Edmead ruled, citing “a crippling ap- pearance of impropriety” and “a taint NJ lease on the process.” “On the slim reed of public interest, By Ariella Cohen he should be removed,” she said. The Brooklyn Papers Although flatly defeated on the larg- er issue of demolition, opponents of the Plans to relocate the New project hailed this part of the judge’s Jersey Nets to Brooklyn in ruling. 2008 will be delayed. “It shows that the court is concerned Team owner Bruce Ratner was that the process to date has not been Callan / Tom reported this week to be seeking objective and has been far too collabo- a two-year extension on his rative” between Ratner and state au- lease at the Meadowlands. thorities, said Jeffrey Baker, lawyer for When Ratner purchased the Develop — Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, team in 2004, he said the Nets the lead plaintiff in the case. would move from the Jersey As Baker mulls whether to appeal the Papers The Brooklyn swamps to a Frank Gehry-design- larger part of Edmead’s ruling, Ratner ed arena at Atlantic Yards after the moved briskly to capitalize on his win. 2007-2008 season. On Wednesday, workers in blue Snow day But that timeline now appears protective gear started clearing as- Amanda Chapin eschews wheels for skis during Sunday’s “record” snowstorm. in question, according to the See DEMOLISH on page 2 Here, she glides down Hicks Street between Montague and Remsen streets. Newark Star-Ledger and other published reports. Should Ratner get his lease ex- tension, it could cost him dearly. According to the Star-Ledger, the state of New Jersey is seeking to eliminate a requirement that the Laura Geiser state buy $750,000 of Nets tickets Borough President Marty Markowitz with Steve Hindy (right), Jim Stuckey, Darryl each year. Dawkins and three Nets dancers at Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. The New Jersey Sports and Ex- BORDER PATROL position Authority, which runs the Meadowlands, may also ask the team to bear more game-day ex- French anti-globalization activist penses, the paper reported. Beer war brewing The Nets say that the longer lay up in Jersey won’t affect the By Gersh Kuntzman former NBA star Darryl “Chocolate Thun- blocked from speaking in Park Slope team’s long-term goal of moving The Brooklyn Papers der” Dawkins and four Nets cheerleaders to Brooklyn. to the brewery to watch the Nets-Cavaliers “We have made a major invest- This Bud’s for you? game on TV and open a few brewskies. By Gersh Kuntzman ment in this team and in the real It might be, if you join a nascent, poorly Days after the party, the blogosphere The Brooklyn Papers estate at Atlantic Yards,” said team organized and, let’s face it, uphill boycott slammed Hindy, calling him a toady and CEO Brett Yormark. of a tasty product churned out by Wil- suggesting that his Brooklyn Brown Ale The fair-trade, shade-grown, or- “Even if there is an unexpected liamsburg’s own Brooklyn Brewery. should be called “Brown-Nose Ale” for ganic coffee was ready for brewing, delay, we are as determined as This week, several opponents of Bruce the manner in which he was supposedly but the guest of honor was already ever to see this through.” Ratner’s arena, residential and commercial sucking up to Ratner, who already sells on a plane back to France. A spokesman for the developer, mega-project, called for the boycott, citing Hindy’s products at Nets home games in International anti-globalization activist Joe DePlasco, couldn’t pinpoint brewery owner Steve Hindy’s increasingly New Jersey. Jose Bove — who achieved iconic status when the Nets would actually public support for the developer. “Hindy is desperate to be part of Rat- in some circles for demolishing a Mc- move to the Atlantic Yards arena. It started last week, when Hindy invited ner’s hoped-for Brooklyn: bland high-ris- Donald’s in France in 1999 — was de- “We are looking [to move] after arena booster Borough President Marko- es, national-chain box-stores, and a pauci- tained at Kennedy Airport and sent home See LEASE on page 2 witz, Ratner vice president Jim Stuckey, See STRANGE BREW on page 2 last week, hours before he was set to star at a forum hosted by the Park Slope Greens, the Sierra Club and the Safe Food Committee of the Park Slope Food Coop. As a result, Bove missed the warm re- ception — and genetically unmodified, organic, local, family-farm-raised refresh- ments — he would have received at the Gowanus pumped up Feb. 10 forum, “Fighting Corporate Pow- er: GMOs & Food Security,” at the Park Slope Methodist Church, Sixth Avenue By Ariella Cohen year fix with a $225,000 and Eighth Street. The Brooklyn Papers grant. “As you can imagine, we were all quite The fetid corpse of water disappointed,” said Gloria Mattera, a / Bullit Marquez The wait may soon be nestled between tony Car- Green Party loyalist and, most recently, the over for a cleaner Gow- roll Gardens and tonier Park Canal pals party’s nominee for borough president. anus Canal. Slope has festered on the The Brooklyn Papers “He’s such a big draw, but it was all After saying that a repair city’s clean-up list for over the news when he was denied entry, Associated Press of the canal’s broken water City and state authorities say they’re back on decades. But as more peo- track — again! — to cleanse the fetid water of the so we only got 65 people. We would’ve pump would not begin until ple buy land along its French agri-activist and McDonald’s destroyer Jose Bove was set to speak in Gowanus Canal. Here are several things that are gotten double that!” 2010, the city now says the mucky bank, pressure has Bove was set to talk about “the corpo- Park Slope, but federal border authorities wouldn’t let him into the country. work will commence in built to modernize the likely to occur first: ratization of food and water and how the The snub stunned members of the Park Slope Food Coop. 2008 — a breakthrough that pumping system. union movement can work with farm- looks good to those redevel- Under the new repair Virgin Mary appears to three kids outside the sea- ers,” Mattera said. cause, not his violent tactics, got him de- lated only to convictions on U.S. soil. oping its once-forboding, schedule, the city Depart- lion tank at the Prospect Park Zoo. She called his appearance in Park tained at the JFK customs desk. Days after Bove was bounced activists now-fashionable, banks. ment of Environmental Pro- Dodgers return to Brooklyn and seize the Atlantic Slope a “natural” given how the Food “The American government is fed up in Park Slope were still scratching their Rest assured, the infa- tection will upgrade the Yards site by eminent domain. Coop “has been such a forerunner at with [the fight against genetically modi- heads (cleansed, of course, with non-ani- mous Lavender Lake will 19th-century pipes that looking at the danger of genetically mod- fied organisms and foods] because Amer- mal-tested shampoo) over the deportation still flood whenever there’s push fecal overflow to a Surgeon General declares Junior’s cheesecake “a vi- ified food.” ican companies [that make GMOs] are of their star attraction. a big rainstorm, but with a nearby sewage treatment tal part of a well-rounded diet.” “He’s always fighting for social jus- losing a lot of money,” he told reporters “This conference was not going to be vi- better pump drawing in plant, while also tripling the tice,” she added. upon his return to his beloved France, olent, though you could make the argument “fresh” water from the But- power of the pump that R train ceases operating in two segments or going The “fighting” part is probably what smiling under his David Crosby-inspired that the large agri-businesses commit vio- termilk Channel, the canal sucks less-filthy water from express after midnight.